Cybersecurity, Private Clouds, Privacy: Guidance on Top 2013 Trends

Over the next 12 months, information security concerns will prompt a growing interest in private or hybrid (public/private) cloud solutions. The expected rise of “personal clouds” will add to the challenge of protecting data for a mobile work force that embraces BYOD (“bring your own device”). Cost, speed, manageability and security are the factors most debated in cloud computing.

ISACA’s 2012 IT Risk/Reward Barometer shows that IT professionals remain wary of public clouds; 69 percent believe that the risk of using public clouds outweighs the benefit. Opinions of private clouds are the opposite — the majority (57 percent) believes the benefit outweighs the risk. Other findings include:

Among people using cloud for mission-critical services, there is a 25-point difference between those who use private (34 percent) versus public (nine percent).

One of the high-risk actions employees take online is using an online file-sharing service, such as Dropbox or Google Docs, for work documents (67 percent).

The most effective way to reduce IT risk is to educate employees (36 percent).

Despite these concerns, CFOs (to whom over half of CIOs report) still look to cloud for return on investment.

Global nonprofit IT association ISACA recently issued guidance on managing three top trends expected to pose major challenges to businesses in 2013: cybersecurity threats, private vs. public clouds and data privacy. As part of its role as a provider of best practices and expertise, ISACA helps its 100,000 constituents worldwide navigate the shifting IT landscape in order to build trust in and value from enterprise information.